When a company has an employee who requires a vehicle to perform certain duties, the company will often provide a leased vehicle for the employee's use. To obtain the vehicle, the company may utilize an internal system or may take advantage of different systems provided by different leasing companies. Internal systems may require too much maintenance time from company employees and so may not be an efficient manner of managing a vehicle fleet. External systems may not provide for enough customizable options and fleet manager input to fit the system to a specific company's needs. A continuing need exists, therefore, for a method and system which reduces the cost of maintaining a vehicle fleet and which makes vehicle acquisition simple and cost efficient.
In order to lease a vehicle, a lessee typically visits a dealer and arranges for the terms of the lease. The dealer, who typically is not the actual lessor of the equipment, may then arrange for the lease. A company leasing a vehicle for an employee may arrange for the lease or may allow the driver to negotiate directly with the dealer. In other cases, a fleet manager may have to work with the driver in order to obtain the desired car with the desired characteristics. Any of these vehicle acquisition routes may increase the cost, in time and money, for each lease. If the company desires to have several different types of vehicles, and to provide the drivers with the ability to choose available vehicle options, it may make the ordering of the leased vehicle prohibitively expensive and complicated.
Systems for ordering vehicles run by a service provider may also present problems. These provider run systems may be designed for a certain size company and only provide features suited for that size company. A need exists, therefore, for a method and system of ordering vehicles that can be customized for the needs of each company using the system. Allowing the fleet manager to change the availability of vehicles, options, upfits, and other information may allow the system and method of ordering vehicles to become more versatile and so better meet the needs of each company using the system.
An additional problem with prior systems for ordering vehicles may occur when the company does business in several different states. Each state may have different emissions controls that require different types of emission control devices. If the company orders the vehicles through one central system, a method must be in place to insure that vehicles sent to different states have the correct emissions controls. A need therefore exists for a method and system that automatically checks and insures that the correct emissions controls are fitted onto the ordered vehicle.
A need exists for an automated method and system for the ordering of leased vehicles, whether by an individual driver or by a fleet manager. This system should allow the custom ordering of vehicles with desired options and may be automated so that vehicles are automatically fitted with the correct emissions controls. The method and system should allow a fleet manager to select parameters to control which vehicles are available in addition to what vehicle options are available. The system should further allow the fleet manager, or the driver, to directly order vehicles through the internet after the parameters have been set. This system should be simple to use and should ameliorate the entire leasing process so as to provide a tool by which a cheaper lease may result